Crimson Star
by Nahkriin
Summary: Sin; the monstrosity with the power to tear life asunder. Nigh immortal, the only hope to quell its wrath was not without consequences. And so the cycle continued...but fate, even when it weighs heavy on one's shoulders, is never set in stone.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note**

Man, it's been quite some time since I bothered with fanfiction; in any case, I feel the urge now, though I won't make any promises. My track record says it all. I've started numerous stories in the past, and never gotten around to finishing them. I dunno whassup with that, but since this story is about my all-time favorite game in the universe for eternity, I might actually finish this one. I'd probably feel pretty dang guilty if I didn't, after all. Also, I plan on keeping this story relatively short. With all my other fics, I set out with the hopes of writing a long, epic tale. With this, I want to create more of a personal, perhaps contemplative story as opossed to a long adventure. So, yeah! Hopefully I pull through, and if I not, I'm a shame to mankind, amirite?

**Rated T**

Jecht's a rough-spoken fella, so there will probably be a few unsavory words uttered here and there. Maybe some violence and suggestive content, too; I dunno, man, I have yet to write a thing, how about you lay off and let me do what I need to do? Heh, I jest, I don't hold you responsible. You can rest easy.

**Just to let ya know...**

Like I said, I'm not out to write a big story here. I expect to keep it pretty short, and it's not going to be a very linear narrative, either. I plan on jumping to different times, places, characters, et cetera with pretty much each chapter. This is more about Jecht as a character than anything else, so I plan on highlighting the important events in his life and the effects his actions had on the people around him. And whatnot.

**Disclaimer**

I do not own FFX, Square Enix does. Well, I own a copy of the game, and I'm surprised it still works, to tell the truth. Heh, I've had it since it came out, and man, lemme tell ya! There are so many dag nab scratches etched into that baby from spinning around in the ol' ps2 that I'm surprised it hasn't shattered into multiple shards of glass in a manner akin to a random encounter in the game itself. Seriously, I think it's because my love for the game is so dang all-encompassing that it shields the disc from suffering from any mortal injuries the cruel world inflicts upon it over the passage of time. I mean, I pretty much play through the entire game at LEAST once a year, sometimes twice. I could go on and on, and if you're still reading this, you're a pretty big sucker. Why would you still be reading this, sucker? Man, don't even get me started on how much I love FFX. That's probably what I'd write about if I ever wrote a college thesis. 100+ pages about how much I love FFX. Did I tell you I'm probably the biggest fan of this game in existence? If you care to debate this FACT, I welcome you to a duel, good sir (or lady). That's right, you don't get any special treatment if you're a girl. When it comes to FFX...! Man...*chuckles* Uh...yeah, that's enough of that, sorry.

* * *

_**Prologue**_

_Waiting_

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* * *

  
_

_How much longer? _

There was no need to speak; there was no one to hear him. All this time, there had been no one. The loneliness was something he had learned to cope with, something that was initially unbearable. Once upon a time, he had thrived on the company of others, even if he hadn't realized it at the time. He drank it up, never questioning why, never stopping to give it thought.

Before, there was no shortage of distractions.

Dealing with adversity was never a problem, before. There was always something to take his mind far, far away from what troubled him. Sure, it came with a price; in itself, the running created more adversity. But it hadn't stopped him. Now, he realized that had he stopped to think for a moment, to dwell on it, maybe it would have been too much to handle.

He was weak.

He had always thought of himself as the strongest, the fastest, simply the _best _at everything. No exceptions. Whenever something came up that could hinder his progress, whenever he identified even the slightest chance of failure, of someone other than himself rising above, he had to fight it with all his might.

But he wouldn't ever admit that. He had to maintain the Jecht that everyone else knew. The Jecht everyone else had always raised on a pedestal, the Jecht that eclipsed _everything_. In that life...

But it was over. Zanarkand was an entirely different reality. He opened his eyes...he had been thinking a lot lately. He was tired of it. Not that he ever had much else to do, here...he looked around, taking in the surreal landscape that had been his home for...

"How long...?" He muttered, the words sounding faded and distant to his own ears.

The sky, at least, looked the same. The number of stars, the hue of the darkness, even the taste and smell of it all. Even the silence of night rang true to the Zanarkand he once knew.

But it wasn't...it wasn't Zanarkand at all. It was an illusion, born of his own subconscious, perhaps. A mass of familiar settings torn asunder, kept frozen in time; a portrait of disaster, perpetually unmoving. He thought of it as a reminder.

Of what _he _had done.

Perhaps it was all to mock him, perhaps it was to remind him of how important it was that he saw this through. He chuckled. "Not like I have much of a choice..." He muttered, gazing forward. The familiar sight of cold steel met his eyes as the gigantic sword kept firmly rooted in the ground came into his line of sight.

He had accepted his fate, but it wasn't for naught. He sometimes felt an immense hopelessness, but he couldn't let that side of himself ever see the light of day. Not even in his solitude...because...

"He'll show up any day now...right, Auron?"

He wasn't content to let the cycle of needless death and rebirth continue. Sin was merely a vessel, albeit one that contained unimaginable powers...powers that could tear lives apart in the blink of an eye. But a vessel regardless.

One that had been manipulated far too long by corruption and a vast, uncompromising fear of change. He was sure that by this point, the boy had realized what he needed to do...he was his son, after all.

Jecht looked up at the stars, the only thing that seemed to move in the bizarre, timeless place that he called home.

"At least you're moving..." Jecht practically whispered, grinning slightly as light cascaded against the darkness in the sky.

He waited a bit more. He wasn't sure how long, and it didn't really matter. He was used to it. Finally, he felt it, and a moment later, heard footsteps behind him. He didn't turn around, not at first. If he did, what he had been hiding all this time might slip loose. He couldn't show weakness, not now. He had a job to do. "You're late, Auron."

He could hear the slump of Auron's shoulders behind him, as if his old friend had been lifted of a great burden. Auron sighed softly before responding. "I know."

_No more thinking._

Jecht turned and faced his son.

* * *

**Well, I hope you liked it. 8D**

**I'll try and upload another chapter later today. Until then, I bid ya farewell! Review if you like it, if you don't mind. **


	2. Out At Sea

**Disclaimer**

All legal stuff and whatnot goes to the bigwigs at Square Enix, yo.

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

_Out at sea_

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_

The water was just right; neither uncomfortably warm or chillingly cool, but an agreeable lukewarm that felt great as it gently caressed the skin. Jecht grinned, slowly pushing his way further out into the expansive sea. Here, he felt truly at ease. Away from the fans, away from the family, away from the nonstop activity of Zanarkand. Sure, he enjoyed his very public lifestyle, and of course he enjoyed the time he spent with his family. Well, mostly his wife...

Jecht grimaced slightly; he was alone, which meant his mind was finally free to wander. He didn't like where it ended up...he didn't want to dwell on his mistakes, plentiful as they were. He just wanted to practice, the perfect water cradling him all the while.

But the damage had been done. Tidus's voice resonated within his mind. Crying, yelling, but...there was also the silence. The silence of loneliness, of bitter resentment, of anger...the silence that Jecht simply didn't know how to deal with. Sure, he was hard on the boy...but for Jecht, there was no other way. This was _his _son, after all. He didn't want him to become some soft, normal everyday type of guy. No...for Tidus, he wanted more than even he himself had to offer. And he had no clue how to tell him.

So he pushed him away, and took every chance he got to remind Tidus that he wasn't strong enough. That he was still a kid, weak, and that he had to suck it up and stop crying. If there was an easier way to go about it, Jecht would take that alternative, but he didn't know of any.

He threw his blitzball into the air, and for a moment the ball was caught directly in the path of the sun; from his angle, it looked almost like an eclipse. Jecht smiled, softly, and he wasn't even sure why.

He caught the ball as it descended, the all-too-familiar feel of the plastic material taking his mind away from other issues. He rubbed his hard hands over the blitzball, sliding his fingers in between the grooves brought out by the numerous bumps. For now, there was only this.

* * *

Tidus sat near the window, the aromas of his mother's cooking wafting into the room and filling it with the delicious scents of the meal to come. He smiled softly, but his mind was elsewhere. Gazing out into the ocean that seemed to stretch on forever, he looked for his father. He wanted to see him out there, far away...he wanted to see him as nothing but a speck in the distance.

_Dad..._

His fists clenched as his heart began to beat harder, anger rising within him. Someday...

* * *

"Eh...?" Jecht murmured, ears picking up a faint rumbling in the distance. He didn't know why, but he felt his heart began to beat quicker. As the rumbling grew louder, as if closing in on him, the pace of his heartbeat gradually increased until he couldn't help but breath heavily.

"The hell is this?!" Jecht's temper flared. It was probably just the sea; maybe a big wave was coming, nothing he couldn't handle. He looked down, surprised to see his hands shaking...his vision was momentarily blurred as a couple beads of sweat dripped off his hair and down his nose.

"What the..." There was no way to describe it; he simply _felt _it. A growing sense of impending disaster...he had never felt anything close to this.

And then he saw the water rise, and it seemed to stretch forever. It kept growing, and growing, wider and wider...the rumbling was unbearable. Jecht grimaced, eardrums thumping, heart racing, sweat sticking to his skin and flowing down, and he was frozen. Right there, he was stuck; he tried to work his mouth, and found he couldn't summon the strength, he felt totally and completely numb. Powerless.

And something inside him snapped. The realization was so powerful that it erased all fear, all thought, all logic, everything. He didn't matter anymore.

"Home...!"

He felt his body twist around and push violently onward, and he couldn't have stopped even had he tried. There was no longer any pain, and he couldn't hear the rumbling; only thoughts of his family, of his fans, of _home..._

"Agh, DAMN IT!"

Jecht didn't know how fast he was going, but there was water everywhere. It splashed up in front of him, it rose to his left, his right, and he could feel it closing in on him from behind. But who cared? His eyes were set firmly ahead; Zanarkand. Home. It was closer, and closer...

Suddenly, he felt himself inhale sharply, painfully. His eyes widened and he felt an intense pressure on his lungs. What little sense of physical being he had maintained moments prior were completely stripped away as he was flung upward, violently.

Nothing was solid. The sky was spinning, water curled around him, embracing him, as if...welcoming him. It didn't force itself on him, it merely adjusted. As if it had been waiting, and now, had opened itself to him. And somehow it felt...strangely like everything, for that moment, was fine.

And in the next instance, the pain of reality returned to him.

He broke through the swirling vortex of twisting, vicious water, and into the sky. His heart stopped as he took in what loomed above.

A hole. A slowly swirling, gaping hole, as if the sky itself had been cut open. The nearby clouds seemed to be drawn to it, slowly being sucked into the gradually expanding sky crater. The sky surrounding the hole was basked in a eerie, almost golden light.

Jecht realized he was moving, and tried to fight it. But no matter how hard he pushed away, his body simply wouldn't move. Whatever had gotten a hold of him...there was no escaping its grip.

Jecht yelled out as he was sucked into the light.

* * *

_Ieyui_

_Nobomenu_

_**This song...**_

_Renmiri_

_Yojuyogo_

_**I know it...**_

_Hasatekanae_

_Kutamae _

_

* * *

_

Crimson eyes slowly opened to stare up at the night sky, frozen in time. "Zanarkand." Jecht was surprised to hear his own voice, as if afraid it would no longer work. Slowly, his thoughts began to return to him, but he wasn't ready to think just yet. No. He just wanted to drift...just for the moment.

He would recognize the stars of Zanarkand's night anywhere. Sure, Zanarkand never slept. But there was a time, every night, where you could hear the silence...Jecht would stand just outside his room and look up at the stars, and it was those moments that he remembered. When nothing else mattered but the tranquility.

But this...it wasn't right. There was rubble floating in place next to him, unmoving. Everything had stopped.

And suddenly, there was nothing but white, blinding him. A sound seemed to echo as if from far away, but it got closer and closer, ringing in his ears, and then he felt his eyes open again.

He was in a room, one that looked nothing like anything he had ever seen before. There were symbols all around him, and a curtain...he found himself wanting to know what was hidden behind...he took a slow, cautious step towards the oddly appealing curtain, but stopped as he heard a soft, childlike voice from behind him.

"It begins."

"Eh?!" Jecht turned around quickly, looking down to see a small child, garbed in a rather majestic cloak. Jecht took a step closer, eying the young boy oddly.

"Don't cry."

Jecht stopped, his expression quizzical. Then he felt his temper rise, and growled slightly, gesticulating wildly. "Who do you think...?!"

Then the boy was gone. And he was alone.

* * *

_**Pray, saviour**_

_**Dream, Child of Prayer**_

_**Forever and ever**_

_**Bring us peace**_

* * *

**Sorry, I wanted to make it longer but figured if I didn't finish it tonight I'd be in danger of losing interest in writing like I always do. .**

**Hopefully I'll update again soon! Reviews, please? :D**


	3. Update

**UPDATE**

_9/6/09_

Just in case someone actually reads this, here's an update; I haven't forgotten about this fic, and I still want to finish it, I've just been somewhat busy lately with other stuff. Well, busy as far as my standards go, which probably isn't all that busy as far as most people would be concerned. *chuckles*

But yeah, if anyone is reading this and is interested in me continuing the story, PLEASE let me know in a review or something. Otherwise I'll feel as though there's not much point in writing and probably give up. I tend to do that, it sucks. However, since I'm planning on keeping this story relatively short, I might actually finish it if I get motivated.

What with the possibility of a part-time job and college looming ahead, I haven't felt like doing much outside of playing games, recording music, and hanging out. I haven't been online much at all recently. So I'm just givin' y'all an update; I plan on getting back into writing the next chapter soon, but it probably won't be today or tomorrow as I have somewhere to go and won't be back until tomorrow night.

You should also keep in mind I'm really lazy. Really dang lazy.

So yeah!

_tehmuffinmon_


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